Report 1255
Report #1255 Skillset: Herbs Skill: Harvest/Plant Org: Ebonguard Status: Completed Dec 2015 Furies' Decision: Approved for solution 1. Solution 2 should already be the case (there is code for spreading plants, though it's possible that something does not work, or possibly plants just never reach high enough to spread). Solution 3 was the initial reason for implementing lastharvest, but due to the way stripharvesting works (i.e. removing the actual plant reference in the room), this did not work. We will investigate the possibility of adjusting the mechanics to allow this, but it may not be possible to make it work. Problem: Tending to herbs takes a very long time. Now that forging no longer requires reforging repeatedly, it is THE most time-consuming tradeskill in the game. Because it is pure profit, it should still take more time than other skills, but even so the relative time required is excessive. Planting them nowadays tends to come down to a very small number of individuals, who exhaust themselves quickly. Most of us who are herbalists tend to just pick over their hard work to get what we need, because we have long since burned out on the time and energy required to replant areas. While there do exist some workarounds to attempt to the problem (Nature Guard as a primary example), it has become very clear over the years that these are more of a band-aid than a real solution. Another very frustrating aspect is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to tell if all the herbs were stripped from a room by a person, or by dormancy, which burns out once-eager young people very quickly as they see their hard work go poof. 0 R: 0 Solution #1: Instead of having a % chance for the entire stack of herbs to die on midnight during dormancy, make it so that there is the same % chance for 1-10 herbs to die from the stack in the room instead. Thus, herbalists leaving areas well-stocked prior to the plants entering dormancy will end up with a good stock to resupply from, instead of (if they're lucky) four or five rooms out of an area the size of the Glomdoring. 0 R: 0 Solution #2: Solution 1, and when an herb is at 100% in the room (60 plants), give it a 10% chance at midnight to spread to an ADJACENT room of the same area type where that herb does not already exist. This allows for herbs completely left untouched to slowly spread-- as plants should do-- but if they are harvested at all then they will require manual intervention to spread. 0 R: 0 Solution #3: In addition to the above solution(s), allow LASTHARVEST to work even if the herb in the room was reduced to 0. If reduced to 0 by natural causes (death due to dormancy, or due to being terrained by a mage) indicate that the herb was last harvested by NATURE (or DEATH). Otherwise, show the name of the person who reduced it to 0. Player Comments: ---on 12/11 @ 02:37 writes: Solution 1 at the very least, because it will make life much better in general for the average herbalist. Pots, guard, and all the rest will still be needed for acts of terrible RNG luck or intentional saboutage a la stripharvesting. Solution 2 is kind of a neat idea, allowing nature to spread instead of only forest fires spreading. It's so slow that it won't actually remove the need for manual replanting, but if nobody has harvested an area for a long time it at least won't be devoid of life (because frankly, if plantlife in Lusternia really worked that way, all plants would be long since dead by now). ---on 12/11 @ 08:54 writes: Support for all. ---on 12/11 @ 09:07 writes: I support Solution 1 for the reduction of effort in maintaining the poor plants. I'm good with same % for 1-10 (per midnight right?) although 100% removal for 1 herb per midnight is fine too (so you just make sure to leave more than 25 before dormancy or guard, or risk replanting). Solution 2 is alright but can also be applied on the peak month instead, the chance of spreading increasing with the number of herbs in the room. I support solution 3 so that those who still make mistakes can be easily found out and corrected. ---on 12/11 @ 11:41 writes: Support for all three solutions. ---on 12/11 @ 19:51 writes: It's really silly that without extensive player intervention, the entire world's supply of herbs will die on their own. I support this. ---on 12/13 @ 03:36 writes: Note that herbs will never die ENTIRELY without player intervention. The month after hibernation, there is a super-low chance that an herb can spontaneously start growing itself in a room of the correct environment. But the herb will never spread, and in small areas there is a chance that in a given year one will not pop up. This is not, however, enough to do anything useful with and means that after a couple years with no player intervention, there will only be a handful of rooms in the entire game with any of the herb at all. ---on 12/14 @ 15:44 writes: All supported.